Run: 2026-02-16-01KHM5F8JEX0VYQH8M86CTVMGF

The air in the dank basement was thick with the smell of old coffee and desperation. Blueprints of a suburban McMansion were spread across a rickety table, but these weren’t the usual security schematics. They were a child’s crayon drawing of “Princess Sparklehoof’s Palace,” meticulously annotated by Molly in red pen. Bill squinted at it, his beefy finger tapping a wobbly turret. “I still don’t get it. The take is, what? Squishy-brained dolls and plastic junk?” “It’s not junk, it’s leverage,” Molly hissed, her pencil-thin frame coiled like a spring. “Little Ava Hendricks is turning six. Her daddy is Clayton ‘The Claw’ Hendricks. You know, the guy who ‘imports’ vintage sports cars? He’s got a vault, Bill. A real one. Behind a painting of a sad clown in his study.” “Okay, so we case the clown. Why the tea party?” Molly sighed, the long-suffering sound of a genius tethered to an anchor. “Because on a normal day, that house has more silent alarms than a museum. Today, it will have twenty sugar-crazed kindergarteners, a petting zoo in the backyard, and a magician named Zoltan. Chaos is a ladder, Bill. A sticky, glitter-covered ladder.” Bill scratched his stubble, a slow grin spreading. “So we use the party as cover. Sneak in, bypass the clown, clean out the vault.” “No! We *are* the party,” Molly corrected, holding up two garish polo shirts. “We’re ‘Cheery Chuckles,’ the backup party entertainers. My research indicates Zoltan has a dubious relationship with both punctuality and sobriety. We arrive ‘just in case,’ looking official. We blend. I’ll do balloon animals.” “I’m not doing balloon animals.” “You’ll be my assistant, ‘Bumbling Billy.’ Your job is to be conspicuously clumsy. Spill the punch on the security panel by the kitchen. Create a diversion involving the pony and the magician’s rabbit. Keep all adult eyes on you.” Bill puffed out his chest. “A distraction gig. I can do that. But how do we get the presents? They’re not in the vault.” “The gifts are phase one,” Molly said, her eyes gleaming. “We load the ‘Cheery Chuckles’ gift box into our van. Standard procedure, everyone will think. Inside will be every overpriced toy from that pile. But we also leave behind a listening device in a specific present—the one from Aunt Margaret, which is always a hideous, oversized teddy bear. We hear where The Claw stashes the real goods after the party, when he thinks the coast is clear.” Bill leaned back, a grudging respect in his eyes. “So the kids’ loot is just…practice? And bait?” “Exactly. A test run for the big score. And if we get caught, we’re just incompetent party clowns who accidentally took the gift box. The worst they do is make us do the chicken dance.” “I’m not doing the chicken dance.” “You will if it keeps us out of prison!” Molly snapped. She folded the crayon blueprint with military precision. “Now, the hard part. You have to learn to make a poodle. A simple, three-balloon poodle.” Bill stared at the long, twisting balloon she thrust into his hands as if it were a live serpent. “This is beneath me, Moll. I once cracked a time-lock in Belgrade.” “And in Belgrade, did you have to avoid a six-year-old in a tiara demanding a unicorn while her father’s armed guards ate cake? This is the big leagues. Now twist. And try not to pop it. The sound will startle the pony.”